Alma 33:20 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
now the reason [that 01A| BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] they would not look is because they did not believe that it would heal them

Both manuscripts and the 1830 edition have the subordinate conjunction that after reason. The 1837 edition, perhaps unintentionally, omitted the that. There are no other examples of reason postmodified by a finite clause in the Book of Mormon text. However, there is one example of this construction in a revelation given to Joseph Smith in July 1828, during the same general time period as the translation of the Book of Mormon:

Clearly, there is nothing wrong with reason being postmodified by a that-clause. It is quite common in English.

Summary: Restore the subordinate conjunction that after reason in Alma 33:20: “now the reason that they would not look is because they did not believe that it would heal them”.

Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part. 4

References